Hello David,

> 
> The Interim Code of Practice is open to public comment.
> So far it seems that no comments have been received by auDA
> (unless they were so recent they haven't been published yet).
> 
> I trust the information at
> 	http://www.auda.org.au/transition/
> explains the situation and auDA's approach.
> 

I hope to be able to put in a formal submission, now that the comment period
is concluded on the registrars agreement.  I am planning to review other
code of practices to do this.

> I think it is a good idea that an industry code of practice 
> is developed
> by industry consensus facilitated by auDA.  In other words, 
> the *industry*
> (especially registrars) should decide what it wants to put 
> into the code,
> and auDA should do things like organise meetings, provide secretariat
> services and make sure progress is being made.

Agreed.  Although I define the industry to be registrars and resellers.

> 
> But for that to work, you need an industry.  At the moment we 
> have 2 or 3
> commercial registrars, and only one in com.au.  Setting a 
> final code of
> practice in stone now would be pre-mature - we need to have a 
> competitive
> registrar industry first, so those new registrars can fully 
> participate
> in the process of drafting the code.

This is where I disagree.  There already is an industry with over 500
participants.
There is sufficient experience with many of the practices that are likely to
continue in one form or another into the future at the retail level.  Thus
now would be a good time to get some input on the interim code of practice
(from consumer groups as well as industry participants).  The experience
with ICANN, is that there always seem to be more important issues than the
code of practice, and it never gets defined.  It seems that the UK and
Belgium are trying to make some headway here, and it would be good if
Australia also made it a priority.

I agree that the industry will be different in future and that we should not
set a code of practice in stone at the moment.  There could be new practices
that emerge that relate to a new layer in the industry (registrars) -
especially relating to the application of names policy.  It maybe that early
next year is too early to see how the new industry model operates.

> 
> So I think having things like a minimal interim code of practice for
> the short term is a good thing, until the industry is ready to develop
> a proper code itself (with some support and cheerleading from auDA).

I think the industry is ready now to start the process given recent business
practices in the community relating to domain names.

> 
> Under the circumstances (its only an interim code of 
> practice, it isn't
> really customised for .au, and there hasn't been much chance for local
> industry participation yet) I think it is reasonable to start with the
> interim code being voluntary, until we get a better idea of 
> how it works
> in practice operationally, and until the industry has time to nut out
> these issues and try to reach rough consensus (early next year?). 

Agreed.  This is the approach that Melbourne IT is also taking.
I think it is worthwhile putting in some more effort (at least I will be and
I hope others in the industry do as well) to get a good first cut.  I agree
that this can be reviewed next year for another cut.  The second cut should
be done with the view to getting the code formally registered as part of the
Trade Practices Act.

Note that auDA is dependent on industry input, and can't be expected to put
alot of its own resources into developing the code given the heavy workload
on at present.

I agree with the rest of David's excellent posting.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin

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